Syria: The story that’s not being told

When war is happening, it is easy for important details to get lost in the fray. So, although it’s true the Syrian government is committing massive human rights abuses, the opposition is too, according to Human Rights Watch. Accusations of kidnappings, torture and executions of security personnel by the rebels have so far gained little public attention. Is this the fault of journalists like us, or because maybe people don’t want to know?

Photo by Bulent Kilic, Reuters

Ten days ago, Human Rights Watch forwarded an open letter to the Syrian National Council expressing concern about increasing evidence of human rights abuses being meted out by forces working to bring down the dictator Bashar al-Assad. Among other things, the organization cited “kidnapping and detention of security force members, individuals identified as members of government-supported militias (referred to locally as shabeeha), and individuals identified as government allies or supporters.”

From the letter:

Human Rights Watch has repeatedly documented and condemned widespread violations by Syrian government security forces and officials, including disappearances, use of torture and forced televised confessions, arbitrary detentions, indiscriminate shelling of neighborhoods, and deaths in custody under torture. Now, in the face of evidence of human rights abuses by armed opposition members, Human Rights Watch calls on the leadership of leading opposition groups including the Syrian National Council (SNC) and its Military Bureau to condemn such practices by the armed opposition and to work to prevent such unlawful practices.

The letter goes on to allege that attacks targeted at Shias and Alawites, minority groups in Syria, “appear to be motivated by sectarianism.” It says also that evidence has emerged that armed opposition members have “kidnapped, killed, and disappeared civilians and security force members and displaced civilians.”

Photo by SANA, Reuters

Now certainly, this story has gotten play in the international media. Reuters did this story when the Human Rights Watch letter first emerged and the Los Angeles Times did this in-depth piece on the very same day.

I bring up this ten-day-old report because every day I see new updates about the situation in Syria and rarely do they offer information about atrocities being committed by the opposition.

Part of our job as web journalists is to take stories off news wire services such as Reuters and Agence France-Presse, edit them and post them in our world section. And every day, by and large, the stories concern pressure on Assad’s government to end his crackdown on the Syrian people.

Photo by SANA, Reuters

Today, for example, we posted a story about how Assad has accepted Kofi Annan’s plan for bringing peace to the country. The news wires are full of stories about journalists killed by government forces, Britain giving funding to the Syrian opposition to record human rights abuses by Assad’s government and Kuwait’s emir urging Syria to listen to reason.

With a bombardment of stories like this, there’s no wonder the actions of the opposition to get lost.

Assad is a dictator: It’s estimated that around 9,000 people have been killed in the violence that has plagued Syria since September, and his methods for cracking down on protests is an eerie reminder of the iron fist that his uncle Rifaat al-Assad brought to bear on the city of Hama back in 1982.

But it’s important to remember what people are advocating when they call for Assad to be deposed. The people opposing him have designs on power themselves, and we can ill afford to ignore that they’re as capable of human rights abuses as their predecessors.